As a first year joining the iGEM, we have insufficient experience about how to set up a team or what on earth does iGEM want us to do. So, we sought help from the experienced undergraduates since they have an edge over us on either biological knowledge or experience of iGEM competition. Luckily, We found assistance from TJU iGEM 2015 which has an assistance project for other teams this year by spreading the handbooks. Notably, we have accepted one in Chinese version from them, which then become a convenient and useful tool for us to get familiar with this competition. Information like the prolonged history, necessary knowledge about synthetic biology, requirements for medals and projects of other outstanding teams are all recorded in a single book. Therefore, we master the basic principles of experiment for synthetic biology and requirements of the competition in a fastest way.

After communicating with the experiment teams, we find out that they need inspiration when choosing projects, information when starting on projects and tools when processing data and diagram.

And then, we consider what software can do to help the experiment teams. After the brainstorming and we get the answer we want. The introduction of previous projects will kindle their inspiration of their projects and give them the chance to stand on the shoulders on their ancestors. The tags help to well classify all the information and save lots of time. And the synsketch will help them draw clear and standardized flow diagrams of experiment. IGEMers can use this tool to consummate their projects.

So, we establish a close connection with the experiment teams.

This summer, we have nice collaborations with teams like SCUT-China, SYSU-China, SKLBC-China. And we really appreciate the help and communications among teams.



1. Meet-up 2015 July 14th

At that day, the members of three software teamsincluding SKLBC-China, SYSU-Software as well as our team, SKLBC-GDSYZX and three laboratory teamsincluding SCUT, SCUT-China and SYSU-China, gathered together in the lab of SCUT. We discussed and exchanged thoughts about the relationship and interaction between the software and experiment of synthetic biology. At this meet-up, we also showed our projects with each other, after which we got lots of useful advice and knew experience in iGEM from the three laboratory teams’ members.


2. Experiment train 2015 August 7th- 9th

Our project is about an online panel app, with which the scientists and non-scientists can easily design their gene circuits in the same model. As a new high school team, we do not have solid knowledge about synthetic biology. Even though we can acquire a concept about synthetic biology by self-learning, we still need an intuitional sense about how the molecules interact in the experiment operations. During August 7th- 9th, we had a three-day experiment train and got a better understanding of synthetic biology from team SCUT-China. With the help of experiment, we believe we can make a greater User Experience in our project.


3. Gene circuit library

In order to help the iGEMers create more amazing circuits easily, SCUT-China suggested us to added remarkable designs of iGEMs’ teams to build up a gene circuit library, during which we can test our app and gain some novel idea with the library. However, gathering the gene circuits is a hard work for us, because we have to read the projects of previous iGEMs’ teams and we lack experience of designing gene circuits. Therefore, members of SCUT-China finished reading the projects and used the panel app to complete the construction of gene circuits library, after which they gave us a feedback to help us improve our panel app.

4. Course design

It is a collar work for us to design the course by ourselves so SCUT-team offers to help us collect the information about synthetic biology and simplify the knowledge point. Actually, it’s a brilliant idea which helps us learn synthetic biology easily and save time at the same time.